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Brazil’s “Dirty List,” a public registry that names employers found to have violated anti-slavery laws, is a key component of the country’s efforts to combat forced labor. Major meatpackers in Brazil signed sustainable sourcing commitments promising to not purchase cattle directly from ranchers on the Dirty List.

Students interested in careers in agribusiness, financial planning, applied economics, environmental policy, consumer finance, and law will have new undergraduate degree options in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa adopt agricultural inputs including fertilizer at a low rate, contributing to low agricultural productivity.

In rural India, having a son is a strong social expectation that puts pressure on women to bear male children. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines how a firstborn son affects the well-being of childbearing women and their mothers-in-law, as well as the broader implications for household dynamics and economic outcomes.

Technological advances in autonomous truck technology are poised to have significant economic ripple effects for U.S. interstate commerce, highway infrastructure and labor costs, says new research co-written by a team of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign economists.

Self-driving truck technology “has a very high potential to change the economic geography of the U.S.,” said Taejun Mo, an Illinois graduate student and first author of the paper.

A new analysis from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Soybean Association finds that Illinois corn and soybean farmers could lose up to $609 million per year — representing a 3.6% revenue loss — if the state banned the weedkiller glyphosate.

Back in the late 1990s, a distressing trend took hold for rural America. At that time, rural and urban mortality rates started to diverge, with rural populations experiencing 9% higher mortality in working-age adults. Unfortunately, the divide has only grown over time. As of 2019, working-age adults in rural areas were 43% more likely to die from natural causes than their urban counterparts, but researchers have struggled to explain this gap.

If your social media feed has suddenly filled with content about ultra-processed foods (UPFs), you’re far from alone. Since Health and Human Services tasked federal agencies last year with developing UPF guidelines, the buzz has been hard to miss. Yet, despite widespread attention on the topic, federal guidelines have not yet materialized and Americans are unsure how to make healthy choices for their families.

As climate change increases the frequency of drought, excessive rainfall, and other extreme weather events, farmers face growing uncertainty about crop production. Understanding how farmers perceive and respond to that uncertainty can help improve agricultural policy and climate adaptation strategies.